Bella Hadid Says Instagram Removed ‘Proud Palestinian’ Post

On Tuesday, supermodel Bella Hadid, 23, claimed that the social media platform Instagram flagged and took down a post she made on her Instagram Story that showed her father Mohamed Hadid’s American passport. Bella said the original post read “My baba And his birthplace of Palestine” and featured a photo of her dad’s U.S. passport.

Bella shared a screenshot that appeared to show the alert she received from Instagram about her July 2 post. The message said the removal was “because it goes against our Community Guidelines on harassment or bullying,” and cited notices of “graphic violence; hate speech, harassment and bullying; and nudity and sexual activity.”

“@instagram exactly what part of me being proud of my fathers birth place of Palestine is ‘bullying, harassment, graphic, or sexual nudity’?” Bella wrote with the screen grab.

“Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying,” she continued. “You can’t erase history by silencing people. It Doesn’t work like that.”

In a follow-up post, the catwalk pro shared another photo of her dad’s passport with the passport number blurred out. “Do you want him to change his birthplace for you?” she asked. 

The 23-year-oldstar declared, “I am proud to be Palestinian.” She also urged fans to “post where their mother and fathers were born today! Remind them how proud you are of where you come from !!!”

“To protect the privacy of our community, we don’t allow people to post personal information, such as passport numbers, on Instagram,” a Facebook company spokesperson said in a statement to E! News. However, the spokesperson acknowledged the post was wrongly removed.

“In this case the passport number was blurred out, so this content shouldn’t have been removed,” the spokesperson said. “We’ve restored the content and apologize to Bella for the mistake.”